Audio

Some Christians are receiving some benefits in dealing with stress through meditation. Yet, the meditation they are practicing is not the meditation found in the Bible, but rather, the meditation practiced in Buddhism. There is quite a bit more to Buddhism than the benefits of meditation, of course.

Clearly, Buddhists and Bible-believing Christians see things very differently.Some areas of the greatest difference are our beliefs about creation, atonement, grace and end-times.

Bible believers believe in God, the Creator [Gen 1:1]. Jesus Christ attested to creation in Mk 10:6 and Mk 13:19. Buddhists deny that God created the heaven and the earth.Therein lies a fundamental and irreconcilable problem.Buddhists are non-theistic.

Bible believers believe that Jesus atoned for our sins through his shed blood on Calvary [Rom 5:8-11].Without faith in his death on the cross, his burial and his resurrection, we could not be saved [1 Cor 15]. To Buddhists, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is not important. There is no need for atonement from sin because there’s no such thing as sin in Buddhism.

Bible believers believe in the grace of God, by which we are saved [Eph 2:8-9] and by which we are supplied and strengthened by the Lord in every area of our weakness [2 Cor 12:9-10; 2 Cor 9:8].Most Buddhists believe that grace cannot interfere with karma. Karma is a spirit or emanation that infuses someone; it’s a force generated by a person’s actions to perpetuate transmigration. To a certain extent karma determines the nature of the person’s next existence.

Bible believers believe in the end of this world at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ [Matt 24:3-34] and the eventual melting of the elements and the creation of new heavens and a new earth after the one thousand year reign of Jesus on the earth [Matt 24:35; 2 Pet 3:10-13; Rev 20-21].Buddhists believe in a never ending cycle of birth and death with no starting point.The only way out of this cycle is to attain enlightenment and, thereby, to be released from this cycle and attain Nirvana. Nirvana is the ultimate goal in Buddhism. Nirvana is not heaven [Rev 21:3-4], but rather, a transcendent state in which there is no suffering, no desire, and no sense of self. In Nirvana, you are released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. As Christians, our victory over death is in Jesus Christ, when we are saved.

For a Bible believing Christian, practicing Buddhism would be a sin.I think you can more easily see that now that you know these differences.

You don’t need to practice any aspect of Buddhism to benefit from meditation.Read and think about Joshua 1:8-9, Psalm 1:1-2, Psalm 19:14, Psalm 104:34, Psalm 119:97, 1 Tim 4:15-16.Meditation is clearly covered in the Bible.But notice that the person meditating is meditating on things that are in the word of God.

Through prayer ]Phil 4:6-7], the filling of the Holy Spirit [Gal 5:22-23], and the Lord Jesus Christ [Jn 14:27, Matt 11:28-30], you will gain the peace and rest that you are hoping to acquire through meditation.